Our inaugural KVH Biosecurity Symposium took place last week and was hugely successful, with a wide range of presentations, demonstrations, networking, and of course a big response simulation experience.

Onside and the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) joined KVH on day one to run "Exercise Tracey", which simulated responding to an incursion of Ceratocystis Wilt in Te Puke and stressed the importance of traceability when it comes to a quick and effective biosecurity response – including teams working through the specific differences data and record keeping make to decision making and actions that limit impacts on growers.

There are too many presentation highlights from day two to mention, but a crowd favourite was Nick Secomb from the Department of Primary Industries and Regions in South Australia, who joined us live to fittingly bring all the elements of biosecurity readiness and response together in one discussion about the numerous fruit fly responses underway across the state.

Thank you to everyone who joined us throughout the two days – the KVH team were all delighted to see you in person, and we hope you found the event as worthwhile as we did. It’s important to us that we share all the work underway in biosecurity readiness, response, science, and innovation to protect growers and the kiwifruit industry from biosecurity threats.

A special thank you to our event sponsors, without whom we would not have been able to offer our inaugural Symposium. Thank you to Plant & Food Research; MPI; Onside; NZKGI; and Zespri for the support and presence throughout the event.

We will have videos from the day available soon, and some articles in the next issue of the Kiwifruit Journal, but in the meantime:

• See some images from the event
• Opt-in and manage biosecurity risk with Onside